Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Telegram to the

Workers and Engineers of the Azneft Trust Baku

Written:28 April, 1922First Published:1942; Published according to
the original; signed by LeninSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965,Volume 33, page 348Translated:David Skvirsky and George HannaTranscription\HTML Markup:David Walters&R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation License

On the night of April 9 enemies of the working class tried to destroy the Surakhan oilfields at Bakil by fire. I have learned of instances of extraordinary heroism and courage displayed by the workers and engineers of the oilfields, who localised the fire at tremendous risk to their own lives, and consider it my duty to thank the workers and engineers of the Surakhan oilflelds on behalf of Soviet Russia. These examples of heroism show better than anything else that despite all the difficulties, despite the uninterrupted conspiracies of the whiteguard—Socialist-Revolutionary enemies of the workers’ republic, the Soviet Republic will emerge triumphantly from all difficulties.

V. Ulyanov  (Lenin),Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars